interview & photos by Alissa Ordabai
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I soon realise that they have, in truth, changed, but still somehow managed to remain the same jaw-dropping act they have so boldly announced to the world they were when their debut album Out of the Cellar went triple-platinum in 1984. To state the obvious, the hair styles are now less flamboyant, the attire is toned down, and the atmosphere is assiduous and workmanlike, but blistering-hot passages from their set that they run through while sound engineers and techs tune their equipment, give away the fact that these days the band’s musicianship remains just as formidable, perhaps even more finely wrought and self-assured than when they last played in London in 1990. At one point guitarist Warren DeMartini discharges a sweltering sheets-of-flame fretboard run that lights up the room in a firework of shimmering notes and this offhand display of virtuosity suddenly acquires a larger meaning – something akin to a promise of even bigger and more beautiful things to come during the show in just a few hours time.
Despite the low-key setting and humdrum attitude of all of those on stage, it feels that anticipation has never been so excruciatingly hard to bear ahead of a rock show before. I could have watched this band rehearse and tune up for hours, but it doesn’t take them long to wrap up.
Bobby Blotzer walks up to me after the soundcheck is over, we shake hands, and his grip feels warm and steady, while he looks affably at me, the tour manager, who introduces us, and Warren DeMartini who stops for a second on his way out. DeMartini’s effortless politesse means that he finds time to say a few charming words to me and to smile gallantly before taking off. Bobby, meanwhile, looks naturally laidback and self-assured, like a rock star on holiday, in his white Rainbow (Bar and Grill, not the band) t-shirt, his blond hair and blue eyes standing out in a striking contrast with his deep West Coast tan. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, and we head outside into fresh air. Crossing busy Charing Cross Road with its myriad of small guitar and music shops, we continue walking towards Covent Garden, the fashionable theatre district of Central London, the plan being to do our interview in the peace and quiet of Ratt’s hotel lobby.
Not the one to waste time, Bobby decides to begin the interview as we walk, me stretching out my Dictaphone towards him to catch him talk, and passers-by turning their heads to see who the tanned swaggering American celebrity is.
Not exactly sure how many people recognize him, I try to focus as steadily
as I can on the answers Bobby gives me, which proves harder than it sounds,
because the inquisitive and at times admiring glances are coming in thick
and fast from practically everyone who sees us walk. Blotzer, after all,
not only looks like a rock star, but is one of the most prominent, instantly
recognizable figures of the ‘80s rock A-list. A drummer responsible
for co-creating the sound that defined a decade and captured the spirit
of the time like no other band’s, he tells me that despite all the
fame and recognition in the ‘80s, he to this day keeps himself persistently
busy. Apart from currently touring Europe with Ratt and just finishing
writing his autobiography, only a few months ago he released the debut
album of his side project Saints of the Underground which he formed in
2006 with Jani Lane of Warrant, Alice Cooper’s guitarist Keri Kelli
and fellow Ratt member Robbie Crane. It is a dynamic, rock-solid record
full of instant-grip hooks and flawless melodies, and should be checked
out by anyone who is interested to see how classic rock sound is fusing
timeless grooves and outstanding musicianship with the spirit of this
decade. And, of course, Bobby and I talk about the main news that isnow
beginning to emerge from the Ratt camp – that once the tour is over,
the band will be going into the studio to record Ratt’s 8th studio
album, the first in 9 years. It all seems too good (if there is such thing)
to absorb all at once. So I start with the simple stuff.
ALISSA ORDABAI: This is your first time in London in how many years?
BOBBY BLOTZER: Our last show was October 31, 1990. Eighteen years, basically.
AO: How does it feel to be back in England?
BB: It feels amazing. The people are brilliant and it’s always a treat to come here and play for the fans that we have here. I wish we had a lot more. A lot of bands have trouble in their budget getting here. Especially bands that are as popular or big, as, say, Ratt… Aerosmith and Van Halen for years didn’t come here.
AO: A lot of bands didn’t think if was safe to travel overseas after the terrorist attacks on New York.
BB: Well, you know, when you are in the States, you’re
doing huge venues, and then you come over here and you gotta kinda suck
ass a little bit, and a lot of bands don’t wanna do that. We used
to invest a lot of money to come here and it just never transpired into
the record sales we had hoped for, and for headlining - not the kind of
venues of the size we would like to play. We’d be totally happy
with 2,000-seaters, you know. Right now after not being here of course
we have to re-establish, and play sort of scaled down venues in the UK.
Right now we are just trying to let people know that hey, Ratt’s
back and we mean business.
AO: How would you describe the audiences in the UK are different than in the US?
BB: Oh, sure, yeah! They are a lot more vocal than in the past, but still… They remind me a lot of the Los Angeles crowd because they more or less stand there and kind of put you through the ringer by watching. But they rock more and harder now, it’s different than it was when we were here before. Like at the end of a song in the States the applause goes on for a long time and they are screaming and whistling, and over here generally you get the initial “Ye-e-e-a-a-h!!”, clap-clap-clap-clap, and then it ends. And we are wondering, “Fuck, will it stay like that?”
For the record here, in my 30 years in this business, I’ve never done a walking interview like this.
AO: Neither have I!
BB: And I’m thinking that it’s really kind of interesting and fun! [Laughs]
AO: Sure is, haha! What goes through your mind when you play classic Ratt material on stage these days? Does it retain its original impetus or have these songs now acquired a new meaning?
BB: What goes though my mind is why the hell do we even have to rehearse. I know these songs inside out, I tell Warren that, but you know, joking aside, we do those old songs, of course, really well, it kind of gets your endurance up, I can dig that, we try to keep them fresh and all that shit… What goes through my mind is that we can see a lot of young people. Like last night in particular, in Dudley, in front of the stage there were about five dudes who looked like they were in some rock band, and they were having such a great time, and sang along, seeing new people, new generations getting into this kind of music. And we are still out there to kick their ass, we are playing better than ever. I hope you feel the same way tonight.
AO: I can’t wait for tonight’s show!
BB: I feel like I’m a lifer now, I can definitely see that I could be doing this in 15 years.
AO: There has also been talk about Ratt releasing a new album earlier this year. Have you started writing or recording it?
BB: We didn’t start recording it, but we have recently just acquired three major record label offers that we are kind of trying to make a decision on which label we are going to go with. All of them are majors and they are all cool. But I can’t say at this sage who we are going to be with. When we get home we are going to start going into rehearsals and start working on stuff. Stephen has a boatload of stuff, I have some older stuff written that I haven’t used with any projects, and I have a new project out called Saints of the Underground, which is a side thing with Jani Lane from Warrant, and the record just came out in the States. A lot of people come up to me here and they have copies of it. It’s available in the UK. Saints of the Underground has myself, Keri Kelli (he plays with Alice Cooper on guitar), Robbie Crane on bass, and I produced the record out of my studio in Houston, Texas. Some of the overdubs were done at Keri’s studio in his house and it’s a really good record.
But we haven’t started writing for the new record yet. Generally what we do is Stephen and Warren and myself, whoever brings a song in, sometimes it’s a finished song, and we change it a little bit, or we don’t change it, but generally somebody’s always putting their two cents into a song to put their stamp on it. We’ve always encouraged that. I’m looking forward to working on this stuff right away.
At this point we arrive at the hotel and sit down in the lobby to continue
our conversation.
AO: Is it still early to say what kind of record it is going to be? Stylistically and musically?
BB: We are going to stick to the rules, we are not going to be like Nikki Sixx and try to be Hinder or something… I mean, whatever, that’s cool for him to do that but I think that the long-time fans, fans that like the sound of Ratt want to hear material that sounds like Ratt. So we are thinking a little more on the raw side, more like the EP. The EP right now we play live, we play that in its entirety, right from the beginning, all six songs. It’s really fun doing it, it generates a lot of excitement for us and I think the audience.
AO: Have you ever thought of writing an biography of Ratt? Given the amount of interest in rock star autobiography from that era?
BB: It’s funny you say that because I’ve just wrapped an autobiography and it’s being shopped by my literary agent right now, who coincidentally, was the agent for Nikki, and Tommy, and Slash. I just finished it two and a half weeks ago, took me about 6 months to do it. It’s 420 pages and I think it’s pretty good. I’ve been thinking about it for years, and a lot of people, friends of mine, were saying, “Dude, you should write it up, seriously, those stories are classic.” Those were just a few stories about being on tour and this and that. This, of course, covers my childhood, family, friends. And other things, like people, friends of mine, for 20 years didn’t even know what I was doing musically before that. They have really just gone, “I had no idea!” That I was in Germany for three months, then in Ratt, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. So I would kind of shoot chapters off my friends to see what their reaction was. And it was a resounding thumbs-up, so it encouraged me to really dig in. I had a guy named Jim Clayton, he put it together. He put my story and my words together, and put them in perspective, like, for example, when I was talking about something in year 1985 he’d add bits and pieces about what was going on around the world or something, to make it a just little more interesting. We’d get a chapter done, and then we’d proof-read it, then change this and that.
AO: Have the members of the band read the book yet? Does it contain any surprises?
BB: [Laughs] That’s an interesting question because they’ve requested to have a courtesy read and I’m thinking that I’m not dishing out tabloid stuff. There is a lot of funny stuff in the book. My shit is funny. I make it clear that we were pirates on the road, you know. We were young, rich, famous rock stars, and we were like pirates arriving in a port on a tour bus which was our ship, and we would rape, pillage and plunder. We’d come in and we would rape your daughters and rape your sisters, and take your money, drink your booze, and rock your friggin’ world and then split for the next port. So you know, there were things… I was married at the time, and I keep my ex-wife’s private life private, I’m not gonna embarrass her and I’m not gonna embarrass anybody else’s family. What we did out there is our business, and I’m not sugar-coating things, but I respect the band’s privacy. But I do touch on things that became complex and such, because it’s history, it’s common knowledge in history that there were some tenacious things going on, and I want to let people know the sides of the story. Here is what I think of this, this is what the other guys thought of this.
AO: What do you think were the key moments in the band’s career that inspired transformation?
BB: Well, one key moment was when we hired Marshall Berle to be our manager. While I look at some of the things that he did with admiration and respect, there are other things I don’t. But the key thing that he did was brining in his uncle, the world-famous Milton Berle, the star of film and television who was extremely famous through the ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s and what not. From growing up, everybody in America knew Milton Berle. Nowadays you might be hard-pressed because he died 15 years ago, but at the time he was in our video “Round and Round” on MTV and the album went triple platinum… It was Uncle Milty, he was on TV when we all were kids. Milton Berle was seen on TV every day, or every week. So that became a novelty for them to spin “Round and Round” every 20 minutes. And that song is still so played, it’s on SIRIUS Radio, the satellite radio, on Memorial Day weekend last week they’ve played the top 100 metal songs of all time. We had five songs in the thing and number one was “Round and Round”. I think that’s cool, you know, all of my friends loved it when it came out. And that song just really strikes a nerve. To this day, when we play that song, every person jumps up and down and sings. That’s amazing. It’s our 9th Symphony, that song. So God bless “Round and Round”.
AO: Talking about your music videos, it seems that there is one particular kind of woman that guys in Ratt seem to find attractive. A woman who is the opposite to what the members of the band are, a very cool, collected, sophisticated young lady. How would you comment on that?
BB: It would depend which video you are referencing. I’m picturing the girls from “Slip of the Lip”…
AO: “Dance, Dance, Dance”, and “Round and Round” where Warren crushes through the ceiling landing in the middle of a dining table of this aristocratic family…
BB: Well, yeah, yeah, right, that’s true, we started out as… we were a hard rock band, in a sort of Aerosmith vein. A lot of the other bands that were opening for us, like Metallica, or Armored Saint, those guys were like, "arrhh," in studs and in leather [adopts a cookie monster voice], and we were more into fashion. It was Stephen’s concept to do that. Our photo shoots were always with those clothes from King’s Road-looking places, almost Duran Duran throwaways, you know. So it sort of separated us from the others. And the material was a potpourri of pop and hard rock songs. Pop-rock, which I like, personally. As far as the girls go, yeah, we had Marianne Gravatte on the cover of Invasion of Your Privacy, and she’s a very hot-looking, unobtainable girl for most of us [Laughs]. But then when we did the video for “I Want a Woman”, we specifically went the other way.
AO: That featured a bunch of regular girls.
BB: That’s right, the whole concept was different. We didn’t want to get a bunch of hot chicks, just the girls who run around the arena. That’s not to say that there aren’t really hot chicks at shows, but there are a million just average normal chicks that are dressed to go out and have a good time.
BB: Yeah, how did it start? If God started this, how did he start it? As far as human minds can see, there’s gotta be a beginning. And there is an end. Everything has its origin. So if there is no… no-one bigger before God, and he always was (that’s what I was always told in religion), that’s hard to comprehend. Because we don’t… we are just made in his form. Obviously, you look at the galaxies and the planets, and what we got here on this Earth, and what a genius concept! That’s what I wanna know – what’s the concept behind this all, you know? Hopefully when we leave this planet we’ll find that out. I’m anxious... Or maybe not too anxious. [Laughs]. I hope it gets better! It’s gonna be hard to top Hawaii, that’s my favourite place to be.
AO: Is it?
BB: Yes. I’m always on a boat, I’m a boat person…
AO: You are a pirate!
BB: I am indeed! [Laughs] In fact, my boat is called The Ratt Trap because once you get on, it’s hard to get out! [Laughs]. I like to run it at night on the lake. I go on vacations to lake Havasu, Arizona. The Colorado River feeds into it. And it has the London Bridge, the actual London Bridge that was purchased here by Robert McCulloch of McCulloch Chainsaws. Lake Havasu is crystal clear blue water, 84 degrees, and it’s amazing. I take people there and they just trip out. And you got the London Bridge there and that’s a treat. At night, from say, middle of May through September – October the nights are like 95 degrees, you go under the bridge and it’s like the Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s great fun.
AO: Do you dig London?
BB: I’m amazed! I’m just sad that I didn’t have any time today.
AO: That’s a shame.
BB: Because we rolled into town at like 12:30 – 1 o’clock and I woke up at 7, because I wake up early, and have been reading the whole ride, and by the time we got here I was all tired and I tried to take a quick nap before a radio thing we were supposed to do, I actually missed that… But this city is amazing, I’m tripping on the history of it all…
AO: Rock history…
BB: Of course. I need to come here on a vacation. We are just stuck at a hotel generally, you know. A lot of times, you know, especially in the States, it’s like the same shit, you go to the mall, walk around the mall, then you go to a movie… You know, I play golf, but nobody in my band plays, so… In some cities I have friends I play with. I love to do that because that really helps a tour to move quickly. Because on tour it’s all about waiting. Waiting all day for soundcheck. At the soundcheck you’re waiting for the gig. When the gig’s over you’re waiting for the mover trucks. And then you’re waiting to drive to the next city to do it all over again the next day.
AO: That’s what Charlie Watts said once, that 90% of being in a band is waiting.
BB: Yeah.
When my friends come out, they don’t believe this, they say, “I
don’t know how you do this.” Because they come out with me
and get shit-faced and drink and have a good time, and they are do that
for three nights, and I’m doing it with them, and get everything
done, and keep rolling, and they say, “How the fuck do you do this?”
And I go, “I don’t even look back. We’re pirates, man.
Look straight ahead and keep going.”
